Heaven Sent, page 22
Audible moans echoed under the canopy of oaks. Someone blew their nose fiercely.
‘And the fact that I’ve chosen midnight for my final countdown will hopefully rekindle some memories too, because that was the best time up here, wasn’t it? To be young and in love. With no one else around.’
There were a couple of grief-stricken shrieks and a little keening sob.
‘However, because I may have been inconsiderate enough to die in winter and hopefully by now both you and I are about a hundred years old, I won’t drag this out any longer. I just wanted you to be here, with me, for one last time before my ashes are sent into the heavens. Girls – my girls – thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love you all. Still. I hope you’ll remember me with love forever. So raise your glasses and drink one last toast to a million happy memories. Goodbye.’
‘Not a dry eye in the house,’ YaYa sobbed noisily. ‘Oh, blimey, love – that was a killer. Heartbreaking but dignified.’
‘As a funeral for a gigolo,’ Clemmie dashed away her tears on her mittens, ‘it’s simply perfect.’
The uncontrolled weeping from the candlelit mourners was ebbing and flowing unseen like a midnight ocean. Despite the champagne’s happy bubbles, the grief was tangible.
The Motions, stately, and clearly chilled to the marrow, moved slowly with Guy towards the firing site. Syd, a dark shadow, crossed towards the ghetto blaster.
‘Here we go,’YaYa muttered. ‘Lights, music, action …’
‘Shit!’ Clemmie grabbed YaYa’s arm. ‘YaYa! Look! He’s smoking! That old undertaker bloke Slo has lit a cigarette! Stupid sod! Quick – tell Guy that—’
With a whoosh and a roar, the rocket ignited and screamed away through the oaks.
Misrouted, it meandered upwards and upwards into the midnight sky before trailing haphazardly away across the darkness of the Berkshire countryside.
Unprepared, the mourners shrieked, clutched at one another in shocked surprise, stared tearfully at one another in confusion, then looked perplexedly skywards.
Someone screamed. Everyone was crying loudly. One or two had fallen over.
‘Slo!’ Constance Motion’s voice bellowed through the mayhem. ‘I’ll damnable kill you!’
‘What the hell?’ Guy, incandescently furious, glared at Slo, his elderly face singed by the close-up explosion, the spattered remains of his cigarette and the rocket’s igniter smouldering pungent holes in his frock coat. ‘Why did you do that? Jesus!’
Hoping that Auntie Molly was far too overcome by grief to notice her, Clemmie darted out from behind YaYa and stumbled across the frozen tussocks.
‘Guy! It’s the wrong one! It’s OK … Well, sort of …’
‘What?’ Angrily, Guy pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Christ Almighty – what a balls-up! After all that careful planning, the poor bugger got heaven sent without any of the pomp and circumstance he’d intended. Bollocks! Sorry, Clemmie, I didn’t catch—’
‘Slo Motion dropped his cigarette on the spare rocket. He never got as far as the firing site did he? He must have tripped over the Magik Green in the darkness and set off the spare-in-case-of-emergencies-rocket.’
‘Are you sure?’ Guy peered at her closely in the chill gloom. ‘Really sure?’
‘Positive. Look, the ashes rocket is still there – Slo never got that far over. Quick, before this lot all have a multiple fit of the vapours.’ Clemmie eyed the crowd of helplessly sobbing women in horror. ‘Get back to the microphone and tell them something, anything – just let poor old Max Angel have his moment of glory.’
‘OK,’ Guy held her face between his hands. ‘And if this wasn’t so awful it’d be funny and I might kiss you.’
Clemmie, knowing he was joking, ducked away from him before he could see the longing in her eyes. ‘Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for all that later. Just let’s get this over.’
Grabbing the microphone, Guy practically yelled across Hassocks Hill. The reverberation of his voice was enough to waken the dead.
‘Ladies! Ladies! LADIES! I am so sorry – that little – er – hiatus wasn’t part of Max Angel’s plans, although I’m sure you who knew him best would agree he’d probably find it extremely amusing.’
The sobs died slightly. Several of the women nodded.
Guy, who obviously had no idea of Max’s sense of humour, simply hoped he’d hit the right note. ‘So, without any more delays, let’s all join together and say goodbye to the man you all loved and who loved you. Raise your glasses and say: “Goodbye to Max Angel”.’
The chorus of ‘goodbye Max’ was ragged and teary.
Taking no chances, Guy made sure Slo was held back by a simmeringly angry Constance on one side and Perpetua, who had been at the leftover champagne and was now bawling wildly through a nasal version of “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool”, on the other.
As Guy ignited the rocket’s fuse, Syd pressed the start button on the ghetto blaster.
There was a deafening, thundering drum and guitar explosion.
‘Oh, wow, love,’ YaYa shouted at Clemmie through her tears. ’“Summer of ‘Sixty-nine”! Fabulous! One of my faves! Such a clever choice of tune under the circs. Always makes me want to boogie.’
Sadly, Clemmie found she was already irreverently clapping her hands, tapping her feet and swaying from side to side.
Hassocks Hill vibrated to the deafening raucous rock’n’roll strains of Bryan Adams’ stupendous gyrating anthem as the mortal remains of Max Angel streaked skywards: a glorious profusion of purple and yellow stars, shooting higher and higher, then trailing, drifting, twisting, exploding again and again in huge cushions of coloured constellations.
Three and half minutes of breathtaking music perfectly matched three and a half minutes of astounding pyrotechnics.
‘What a way to go …’ Clemmie breathed, sniffing back her tears, unable to keep still as the superb rocking soundtrack continued to blast through the midnight air.
Max’s mourners were all smiling through their tears now, reliving their own ‘Summer of ’69’ memories, clapping along, hands high above their heads. Several, including Bunty Darrington and Pam Peacock, were dancing. Valerie Pridmore was playing an extravagant air guitar. Perpetua Motion was head-banging.
On the downside, the surfeit of emotion meant that everyone’s make-up had run and it looked like the final night of a particularly raddled Alice Cooper convention.
As Bryan came to the end of his perfect musical eulogy, the final notes ringing through the freezing air, and the last of The Gunpowder Plot’s purple and yellow stars, mingled with Max’s ashes, cascaded gently to earth, Guy walked across to Clemmie and YaYa.
‘How bloody emotional was that?’ He slid his arms round them both and hugged them close. ‘And I don’t just mean the first little blip. God – I feel drained. I’m not sure I could handle many of these without needing counselling afterwards. Oh, who’s that lady giving us a hard stare?’
‘Bugger,’ Clemmie muttered frantically, ‘it’s my Auntie Molly. Don’t let her see me. She must have wanted to keep tonight secret. I couldn’t bear it if she felt guilty about her past. I’d rather tonight was something neither of us ever had to share – oh, shit!’
Molly, emerging further from the sea of lined and make-up-streaked faces, was still peering across at them.
‘Clemmie?’ Her voice was hoarse with tears. ‘Clemmie? Is that you?’
Auntie Molly had come to a halt just by the firing site and was gazing into the candlelit darkness with all the intensity of a puzzled sheep.
Searching in her pockets for a handy portfire and failing to find one, Clemmie grabbed YaYa’s fluffy damson arm. ‘Give me your lighter – quick. No, I don’t want a fag, just the lighter – ta!’
And ducking between the oaks, keeping out of Molly’s line of vision, Clemmie skittered across the crisped grass and after several futile flicks held the lighter’s flame to the Magik Green’s touchpaper.
‘I wish,’ she whispered towards her aunt as the Magik Green started to crackle, ‘that you’d forget you thought you saw me here. I wish you’d forget everything about tonight that might involve me. And I wish you’d go home to Uncle Bill and tell him that you’ve had a lovely night out, that’s all.’
Too many wishes? Too late to know.
As everyone turned and stared at this impromptu colourful explosion, the Magik Green swooshed its fountain of emerald flame upwards with the merest whisper of propulsion, sending a shower of green sparks blowing across Hassocks Hill.
As they tumbled and shimmered around Molly, Clemmie took a deep breath.
‘Verdigris and verture pure
Sparks with nature’s verdanture
Makes wishes forever endure.’
Molly suddenly shook her head, shrugged and, smiling in confusion, turned and walked back to be swallowed up by the crowd of mourners.
Clemmie, avoiding YaYa’s quizzical gaze, exhaled and thanked the ancient Allbard with deep heartfelt but silent gratitude.
‘Oooh, that was lovely!’ Perpetua Motion clapped her hands. ‘Nice colour! Are we having more fireworks, Mr Devlin?’
‘No,’ Guy said, grinning hugely at Clemmie. ‘That was another happy accident. I think we’ve all had enough of fireworks and everything else for tonight. It’s very cold and we’ve all had a pretty emotional night. Shall we just call it a day and go home?’
The general consensus seemed to be that this was a highly sensible and desirable plan, and gradually the firework funeral party began to disperse.
‘Go home, Clemmie,’ Guy said softly. ‘Don’t stay to clear up. Disappear over there, behind the trees. If you leave now you’ll be home and in bed before your Auntie Molly gets there. If Allbard’s up to scratch, she won’t remember any of it by the morning. Drive safely, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Clemmie nodded her thanks, and waving goodbye to YaYa and Syd, started to slither away down Hassocks Hill before the gaggle of mourners made their mass getaway.
‘Oh, and Clemmie …’ Guy called softly after her. ‘I haven’t forgotten I still owe you a kiss.’
Clemmie turned and smiled at him, then floated the rest of the way down Hassocks Hill, smiling soppily to herself and humming “Summer of ’69”.
Chapter Twenty
It seemed an indecently short time between the sadness of Max Angel’s funeral and the joy of Jemima and Charlie’s wedding. The last few frosty, sparkling days of November had turned sullenly into a sulky December, and the weather was now grey, still, and misty.
‘At least it’s not raining,’ YaYa said for the umpteenth time as she, Clemmie and Suggs headed away from Winterbrook through the Berkshire dusk for Milton St John in the 4 × 4. ‘I think I’d die if it rained on my wedding day.’
Clemmie laughed. ‘As you’ve already said you’re not going to die, and as you’re unlikely to get married, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over that one if I were you.’
‘No, but you get my drift, love.’ YaYa flicked her cigarette ash out of the window. Her ‘I’m giving up’ vow on Hassocks Hill had rapidly bitten the dust. ‘I mean, how awful for the bride, when she’s invested everything she’s got in looking the best she’ll ever look, to have it ruined by a downpour.’
‘This being England, I’m sure trillions of brides have survived a rainy wedding day. Anyway, Jemima and Charlie will have been married for hours by now, won’t they? We’re only doing the evening reception. And it hasn’t rained all day, and from what I saw of them, they were so mad about each other that they wouldn’t even notice the weather.’
‘Do they make a cute couple?’
‘Very.’ Clemmie shifted Suggs more comfortably on her lap. ‘And please God nothing will go wrong with this gig.’
They had, as Guy predicted, eventually laughed over the funeral mayhem. Neither Clemmie nor Guy had mentioned the jokey kiss thing, though. And Auntie Molly hadn’t mentioned anything about Clemmie or anyone else being on Hassocks Hill at all.
Uncle Bill had been gently sympathetic that Molly hadn’t won a prize with her miniature garden at the WI, and had told Clemmie that her aunt had been ‘… real late home. Got in after you did – and you were late enough. Apparently she met up with some of her old chums she hadn’t seen for ages. Got nattering. Talked until the cows come home and had a smashing time, bless her.’
And if Molly had spent the last couple of days being quieter than usual and looking slightly wistful, no one commented on it. Neither did Clemmie mention the drooping yellow flower in a bud vase on the kitchen windowsill or the fact that a Bryan Adams CD had suddenly appeared in the Coddles’ music collection.
Allbard’s Magik Green, Clemmie concluded, had done the trick. Again.
Which had given her an idea. An idea which actually had been bubbling away for a long time, one idea she knew she really shouldn’t even consider. In fact, she’d spent the days since Max Angel’s send-off planning the idea and – because she was a scientist – making sure there was a plan B should it all go horribly wrong.
The idea was, of course, to use the Magik Green to make Guy fall in love with her.
Easy enough to do, especially at a display when she and Guy were close together in the middle of multiple explosions, but, and here Clemmie had agonised through several sleepless nights, it wouldn’t be real, would it? It probably would, she believed now, work, but it would be interfering, wouldn’t it? She’d never be able to live with herself. But would she be able to live with herself if she didn’t give it a try?
So, the dilemma: should she use artificial means to achieve her ends? Her heart said yes but her head was screaming no, no, NO! And then there was plan B: to use Magik Green on herself to wipe all stupid romantic notions about Guy Devlin out of her head and heart.
At the moment, plan B two was winning by a country mile.
‘Sorry?’ She peered across the 4 × 4 at YaYa. ‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘You were away with the fairies again, love,’ YaYa chuckled throatily. ‘I really must meet this boy of yours. He sure has a strange effect on you. Anyway, I was just prattling – nothing important – and actually, I think we’re here, aren’t we?’
Clemmie nodded. Even though it was now pitch dark, it was easy to navigate their way to the field where the reception was taking place as a competition between sweeping crisscrossing lasers and the gaudy reflection of a fairground illuminated the sky.
‘Nice village,’ YaYa said as they drove slowly along Milton St John’s narrow, winding main road, past the Cat and Fiddle and Maureen’s Munchy Bar and the tiny arcade of shops, towards the lights. ‘Classy. There must be loads of money in horse racing.’
‘As in all other businesses, probably a lot more at the top than at the bottom,’ Clemmie said tartly. ‘I wouldn’t fancy being a stable lad. Up before dawn, working for peanuts seven days a week at the dirty-fingernail end of the sport, and sleeping in a hostel with at least thirty other people.’
‘Sounds like hell,’ YaYa observed with a shudder as they left the village behind and found themselves in the countryside again. ‘I think I’ll stick to fireworks and drag queening. Here’s the field and I can see The Gunpowder Plot vans parked over there, so we’ll squeeze in between them. Blimey, love! Look at all those limos! Bentleys and Rollers! Dozens of ’em! And I thought this was going to be some small villagey affair tonight.’
‘I think the wedding was fairly quiet.’ Clemmie’s voice was muffled as she leaned down and settled Suggs in his little sofa bed in the footwell. ‘Close friends and family only. The rest of the world was invited to the no-expense-spared reception – and it looks as if they’ve all turned up.’
Oddly, despite only having seen Guy at the boathouse that morning, run through the digital display with him, rehearsed the computerised choreography beside him, helped him double-check and finally pack the vans with the beautiful peaceful fireworks needed for the reception, Clemmie felt her heart give a strange little leap at the thought of seeing him again.
Completely mad, she told herself sternly. Yes, you know he likes you, probably admires your pyro skills, and enjoys flirting with you – but if he gets wind of how you really feel about him you’ll be out of The Gunpowder Plot faster than a Whoopee-Doo Sky Screamer. The last thing he needs is yet another sad female drooling over him.
Which, of course, would be where the Magik Green would come in so handy.
‘Oh, wow, Clemmie! Look at the fair!’ YaYa shrieked as they bumped across the field. ‘I thought it would just be a coconut shy and swinging boats, but it’s a proper full-on old-fashioned fairground! I love fairs! Christ, they must have spent a fortune on all this stuff.’
The 4 × 4 pulled into a gap between the two vans and, having made sure Suggs was settled, Clemmie opened the door to be welcomed by a disco rendition of “Oops Upside Your Head” echoing from the nearest enormous marquee.
Stunningly dressed people were skittering between the two tents, either of which could have housed an entire circus, and the dank December night was filled with laughter and a thousand splintered conversations, the tantalising wafting scents of rich food, the chink of bottles against glasses.
‘Shall we find Guy and the crew first, or go and scrounge something to eat?’ YaYa hesitated, inhaling greedily. ‘Smell that! Fantastic! Not a flaccid sausage roll or curly sandwich in sight, I bet. And I’m bloody starving.’
‘Me too.’ Clemmie sniffed the air, her stomach rumbling. ‘Although that’s nothing new. But honestly, I think we should go and find Guy and co. We’re not guests as such, are we? We may well be offered food after the display, but it would look sort of scroungy to barge in straight away and join the meal queue.’
Although, she thought, it might well give her an opportunity to find Suzy Beckett and see how she’d survived the wedding day.
She and Guy had agreed to bring their specially built silent version of Seventh Heaven with them – just in case it might come in handy. Neither of them really expected to need it tonight, though. Poor Suzy …
